24 February 2008

This week has been lots of fun!  On Tuesday night, I met up with Paula, her friend Nick, and Dan at this really great wine bar called Gordon's.  It's probably the coolest wine bar I have ever been... and has the potential to be very romantic.  When you walk in and to the back of the bar, it's almost as if you're in a cave.  All of the tables are lit by candlelight with a candle stick stuck on the top of a wine bottle.

After Gordon's, we all went to see the fabulously funny play called The 39 Steps.  It was so great!  I have recommended it to everybody I see.  If it comes near you, you've got to check it out.   "Am I right, sir?"

Wednesday evening, I went to Dan's house.  One of his "mates" from Australia came in to town and we were going to take him out on the town.  But, by the time Weijer (Dan's roommate) finished cooking dinner, it was rather late and didn't go out at all.  But stayed in with a couple of bottles of wine and chit chatted for a while.

Saturday, CEA took a group over to Oxford for the day.  It was a quick 1 hour train ride.  We had a guide give us a tour of this wonderful little town.  We saw mostly Oxford University and all of it's various colleges that date back in to the 1100's.  The architecture there was so amazing!!!  I officially named the town "The bicycle capital of the World".  Don't think I have ever seen so many bicycle's in my LIFE!  There are 18,000 students living in this town of 135,000... and they ALL have a bicycle.  I will post the pictures I took on a web album soon so you can see what I'm talking about.

Today, I tried to make my rounds of phone calls.  Called Argentina - German, Dora, Susana...  and my parents, of course.  I'm a bit sad at the moment because my Dora isn't doing so well.  She is dying and Ger doesn't think she will be around for very much longer.  He told me today that he thinks that she is waiting for her great granddaughter to be born, which should be next week some time.  After that, he's afraid she's going to give up.  So, for those of you who believe in prayer, if you could please pray for Dora in that she doesn't suffer for much longer.  Bless her heart.  She is such a beautiful person.  My heart breaks knowing that she's not going to be around for much longer.

This week and next will be very busy for me.  I have a paper due on the 4th and 13th, so my spare time will be spent in libraries and in isolation.  BUT, after the 13th, I get to celebrate by spending St. Patrick's Day in Dublin.  My friend said we're staying in Temple Bar, which is the center of the city where everything is happening.  I'm looking forward to seeing this wonderful country!

Until the next time...

18 February 2008

Alright.  I know it has been 10 whole days since my last posting.  Honestly, there hasn't been too much to write about.

I suppose the biggest news is that I have a new boyfriend... Dan.  I may have mentioned him in the previous postings... I'm sure I did, actually.  It was a total accident that he and I started dating.  He was probably my closest friend here and I had never expected for us to ever date.  Life is funny like that, isn't it?

So, as you can imagine, we have been spending a lot of time together since he got back from France last Sunday.  I cooked him and his roommates (there are 2 - Rowan and Weijer) dinner on Monday night.  Tuesday night, we met up with one of my Chicago friends, Mark, for dinner and comedy.  Wednesday night, we went out for a drink with a few of Dan's friends.  Thursday night, we went to a great Anti-Valentines Day comedy show at some gay bar.  Friday night, met up with KFoy for some drinks.  And over the weekend, Dan and I just hung out and did nothing, really.  I had some studying to do and we did a little cleaning around their apartment.  See?  So, nothing too exciting to note.

Tomorrow night, my friend Paula, her friend Nick, Dan and I may go to see The 39 Steps.  It's an Alfred Hitchcock mystery from the 1930's.  This is so exciting!!!

08 February 2008

WOW has the weather been beautiful here! We have had nothing but sunshine for the past two weeks. Today and yesterday, we had a high of about 57 degrees and it has been absolutely LOVELY.

Life in London has been rather quiet this week. I need to start concentrating more on my studies. We have our coursework due in the beginning of March, so this weekend will, unfortunately, be dedicated to starting some of that. It's certainly nothing to procrastinate on.

Work is good. I'm working on a couple of projects at the moment, although one of them has taken precedence over the other. I'm trying to create a utilization report so management can see the trends of the Consultants and Project Managers. Ran in to a couple of issues in the process. Nothing major, I just couldn't figure out how to automate the spreadsheet. And once I finally figured out how to automate the calculations, I couldn't figure out how to have a graph automatically update once the data has been inputted. Finally figured that out (with the help of a co-worker) and then found out that the way we had it configured didn't include any zeros and we needed some of the zeros to be included. So, back to the drawing board. It's the most complex spreadsheet I have ever created! I'm learning a lot though... although not necessarily about Finance. humpf.

Today, I decided I wasn't going to be a lazy Denise and I was going to be tourist Denise instead. SO, after a few hours in the office, I decided I was going to go take a lovely ride on the London Eye. Had my big camera in tow. Got in to the little capsule, pulled out the camera, and noticed I had left the battery at home. Bugger! Had to use the little camera instead. Ugh. I guess I'll have to go again. It was so beautiful from up there!! Funny thing happened, though. At the end, they take your picture in the capsule. The announcement said to go on the NW side of the capsule, so I did. Everybody else saw there was a camera on the other side, so they were on the NE side of the capsule. I was the only one in the picture. ha ha. But I didn't get it because I got tired of smiling and my facial expression was not so glamourous. Was funny though. They were all bummed that they weren't in the picture. I'm sure they wouldn't have paid 15 quid for the picture anyway. It cost that much to go up the thing!

So, this weekend is a quiet one. Tomorrow, I'm studying and then I'm suppose to meet a lady I had met at a coffee shop last Friday for an open mic musician thing. And then Sunday, KFoy and I are playing tennis with one of his buddies. At the same time, there is a Chinese New Year celebration going on in the center, but it looks like I'm going to miss that. Danny boy is finally coming home from France and I must run over to his place for a welcoming party. Well, there's not going to be a party, per say. Until next time.

4 February 2008

This is my first attempt at a video blog. I wanted for you to see what my little village is like. The actual city of London is only 1 sq mile, so all of the surrounding areas are considered little villages or towns, even though they have a London address. Here is a sneak peak of mine. :) Turn up the volume!

2 February 2008

Ended up NOT going on the trip. Hadn't slept well for the past couple of nights, so I was a little lazy and stayed in the city. I'm sure that I will get another opportunity to go there, since the towns are only about 1.5 hours away from London. It was a really lazy day. Didn't do much other than take the tube to Dan's house for a movie night. We watched Anchor Man and it was funnnnnnn-yyy.

1 February 2008

Didn't have anything planned for this evening, since I knew I was going to have to get up at 6am tomorrow morning to go to Bath and Stonehenge. So, I called Dan to see what he was up to. He always seems to have a social calendar of his own and wanted to see if I could tag along. To my surprise, Dan didn't have any plans either, so we made plans together. We had been talking about going to see a show... specifically Monty Python's Spamalot. I had heard that it was a great success in Chicago, but never had the opportunity to go. The show was fabulous and a barrel of laughs. It was so nice to hear everybody in the audience laughing and really getting in to the show. Before that, we went out to dinner at this place called Ping Pong and had some tasty Dim Sum. Haven't had Dim Sum since Julie and her husband came to Chicago several years back. It was emmm emmm good!